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Sony Ericsson and Nokia fight over uncapped music downloads

Sony Ericsson to launch Comes With Music rival

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Sony Ericsson is poised to jump on Nokia’s recent Comes With Music announcement by launching a rival unlimited music download service.

According to sources unknown, quoted in a report by the Financial Times, SE’s believed to be in discussions with “all of the major [record] labels” over a music subscription service offering fans as many track downloads as they like, all for a monthly subscription fee.

However, launch of the service is thought to be held up by negotiations about how the service will be operated and how a subscription will cost.

SE’s already declined to comment, but the FT report claims the firm will initially launch its Comes With Music rival outside of Europe before September’s out. A European launch could follow before Christmas.

The Sony off-shoot already has an existing music and multimedia downloads service called PlayNow, although it’s not available in the UK. SE added 5m mostly DRM-free tracks to it in January and charges around €1 (£0.75/$1.25) per song.

PlayNow holds music from artists signed to a wealth of record labels, including Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI. Nokia hasn’t unveiled how much it’ll charge CWM music fans each month yet.